


New Habits

by HardPass



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Bioelectricity, Communication Failure, F/M, Grumpy Pathfinder, Have you seen the stains?, Jaal still new to the team, Liam's disgusting couch, Peebee likes weird porn, Seriously that couch freaks me out, Team Bonding, Trashy TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardPass/pseuds/HardPass
Summary: Drabble of the crew of the Tempest hanging out and introducing Jaal to Milky Way culture via trashy soap operas.





	New Habits

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a warm-up to get a handle on how to write the crew interacting with each other, so nothing serious beyond this point. Just some light-hearted fun while I practice speech patterns and personalities.
> 
> Also, I'm deeply fascinated by the idea of the angara using their biolelectricity for communication, and I have strong feelings about the grossness of how Liam's couch looks. XD

Ryder didn’t know how many times she repeated, “I’m fine!” while trapped in the medbay under Lexi’s glare, but by the time she left, she wasn’t even sure if they were real words anymore. The kett mortar hadn’t even hit her. Sure, she got caught in the concussive blast and thrown ass over teakettle a few times into a few rocks, but that was what she had armor for. She had a bruise the size of the Nexus on her butt and some lingering ringing in her ears, but other than that, she was totally and completely fine. 

She limped her way down to the cargo bay to pick up the gear that had gotten left behind on the  _ Nomad _ while Drak forcibly dragged her up to Lexi for a full, post-op workup. 

“Hey, Ryder! Join the party!” 

She half-turned to Liam’s voice, spotting him sprawled out on his couch through the open doorway into his little corner, drink in hand. The drink caught her eye. She would murder for a beer. 

Gear abandoned, she veered toward him until she caught sight of the rest of the “party.” The new guy, their very own caped crusader, sat at the other end of the couch. Vetra stood in front of the vid screen suspended on the wall, giving it a good smack like it was misbehaving, and Peebee lurked the background, snooping through Liam’s junk. Unusual group to be hanging out socially, but hey, as long as the crew was meshing, who was she to complain? 

“Tell me that’s real beer. Now make room. I feel like I dumpstered by a truck full of more dumpsters. Give me a drink and keep the manspreading at a minimum,” she warned, plopping down in the middle cushion of the sofa between Jaal and Liam, exhaling with a long, “ _ Fuuuck. _ ” 

The two men took up too much room, but she was small enough to make the squeeze. Usually she approached Liam's disgusting, decrepit old couch with skepticism, but today she would make an exception. At least the men smelled nice, in their own ways. Both vaguely of gun oil, but Liam had a particular, spicy body wash he’d gotten somewhere on the Nexus and Jaal’s scent was uniquely smooth and clean, like the the air after it rained. Not a bad position to be in, she had to admit.

“Afraid it’s not,” Liam apologized, passing her the bottle anyway. “Just filled some empties with water, kind of like wishful thinking. The blokes in Vortex are trying to get something brewing and I’ve been promised first dibs on a keg once they’re up and running, but until then, it’s all just make believe.” 

She lifted the bottle to her lips. “Nothing but lies and deceit.” 

“Then give it back.” 

“No.” She took a long drink, pretending like the water might hold at least a little bit of flavor from the bottle. 

“This thing is a heap of trash,” Vetra complained, falling back from the vid screen.

“Don’t hurt it’s feelings now! It’s over six hundred years old. Let the old girl settle her bones. There, you see? Picture’s coming on now.” Liam gestured vaguely. 

Ryder handed the bottle back to him and worked a stiff shoulder in a slow rotation. “What are we watching, anyway?” 

“We were going to show Jaal some old reruns of  _ Moonfighter _ . Thought we’d introduce him to some proper Milky Way culture.” 

She glanced toward the big, pink alien, her stomach tightening as he returned the look. She wished she could spend more time just staring, learning the differences of his face from all angles. He hadn’t yet made himself at home yet on the Tempest, regarding the team with cautious skepticism, and her especially. She could deal with that. The angara had been burned by the kett. They weren’t ready to trust again. Most days, she even respected it, but today she didn’t have enough fucks to give about anyone’s comfort other than her own. 

“What, you aren’t going to start him on weird Milky Way porn?” She tore her gaze from his face, settling back against the couch with another grimace and sigh as her bruises began a chorus of complaints. 

“We thought we’d work up to that,” Peebee chimed in from the background. 

“Is that something you do in company? Watch porn?” Jaal asked with slightly widened eyes. 

“No. Definitely not,” the other man assured him quickly. “Peebee’s kidding.” 

“But if you  _ do _ want weird porn, borrow from my collection, not Liam’s. I’d be willing to bet ninety-nine percent is super vanilla.” 

Liam scoffed, half-turning in disbelief to face her. “You into weird shit, Peebee? That something you needed to announce to the class?” 

“You two brought porn to the new galaxy?” Vetra asked blandly, as if she should have known better. 

“You didn’t?” The chorus came from all three Ryder, Peebee, and Liam. 

All of them looked pointedly toward Ryder. 

“Hey, I’m a Pathfinder, not a nun! Now what kind of weird shit are we talking, Peebee? Like, what level of weird? Are we talking hanar, elcor, asari threeway porn, or like tentacles in extra orifices porn?”

“Who says it’s an either/or thing?” she shot back, eyebrows wiggling. “And why are you so interested?”

“Academic reasons.” 

Jaal chose that moment to chime in. “Is interspecies pornography common, then?” 

“What other kind of pornography is there?” Peebee drawled. 

Liam shook his head. “I don’t think that’s really a fair perspective. The thing with porn is that you can basically get whatever kink you want, no matter how niche. If you can think it up, it pretty much exists. And if you’re like Peebee and watching a salarian dominate a krogan with a tentacle strap-on is how you get your kicks, it probably exists.” 

“And if you’re like Cora and you want to watch a male and female human in missionary for six and a half minutes, I’m sure that exists somewhere, too, although you might have a harder time finding it,” Ryder added.   

Even Vetra cackled a laugh with the rest of them.  

“I don’t understand why that’s funny, but please, don’t explain it,” the angaran scoffed. 

“But now I’m curious. Angaran porn…” Peebee suddenly mused. 

“Not a topic we will be covering today. Now what is this vid you wanted me to see? Let’s get to that,” he pleaded. 

Extra chairs were dragged in to compensate for the lack of couch space and Ryder found herself giggling at the antics of actors who probably died centuries ago. Well, maybe not some of the asari. It seemed weird. Forward in time. Lateral in space. And yet she and a group of smart asses could still sit around a vid screen and make fun of the inept acting abilities of Kassina DeLinna before she hit her break and skyrocketed to fame to ineptly act in bigger blockbusters across star systems. 

“This entertainment function is only audio and video,” Jaal complained at one point as they rolled into the first episode. “It lacks depth.” 

“It’s not much of a cultural experience if you sit and whine through it.” She nudged him to shut him up. 

By episode three, Gil meandered in, drawn by the voices and laughter. “You’re showing him this tripe? Put on a real show! This is the worst representation of our system you could have dug up. Kassina DeLinna is a codfish.” 

“No, no, this is fine. We’re just about to find out who the Salarian traitor is,” Jaal insisted. 

“Still missing that depth?” Peebee poked at him with her foot. 

“It is...not terrible.” 

“There, you’re wrong.” Rolling his eyes, Gil drifted back out. 

Boos followed him until he was gone. 

As the show escalated--as well as the plot and on-screen antics--the show finally kicked off one of its better punchlines, which drew the first bodily laugh out of Jaal along with the rest of them. He punctuated it with a slap to his thigh. At the same time as his hand descended, Ryder felt like somebody hit her with a lightning bolt. She yelped, springing out of her chair as her mind flew through scenarios, the logical conclusion being that somebody tased her or the ship malfunctioned and was electrocuting them all willy-nilly. At the same time, Liam also let out a surprisingly shrill noise and flew out of his seat, stumbling over his feet and planting face-first into the deck. Vetra stared at them both like they were nuts and Peebee made a strained noise and stilled her whole body. 

“Woah. Did anybody else just spontaneously orgasm?” the asari breathed. 

“The fuck was that? Christ on a biscuit! That fucking hurt!” Ryder doubled over, her bruises screeching out protests to the sudden movement. 

Jaal looked between them, cringing with embarrassment. “Oh. That was me. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think…” 

She threw out her arms. “What the fuck, man?” 

“It’s okay, mate. It was an accident. Wasn’t it?” Liam picked himself off the floor with a groan. 

“I forgot my company. It’s a common thing among angaran. When things are funny. I didn’t realize it would have such a...profound effect. I didn’t mean to do it anyway. I’ve been keeping pulses to myself, since they are not part of your physiology. Or culture. They aren’t supposed to hurt.” 

“Humans are sixty percent water! If you put electricity into us, we tend to conduct it!” She took a breath, scraping a hand down her face. 

“Apparently asari conduct it straight to their nethers. Excuse me.” Eyes dilated, Peebee hustled out.

Vetra continued staring like they had all lost it. “I didn’t feel it that much. A tingle, nothing more.” 

“I truly apologize. It won’t happen again.” 

Calming, Ryder dropped back onto the couch, scraping her hair back with a groaning exhale. “It’s fine. We’re fine. You startled me more than anything. I shouldn’t have lost my shit. I just...fuck. Lost my shit. Maybe next time turn down the voltage?”  

His face turned an interest shade of deep purpley-blue. Angarans bled sapphire, so it stood to reason that blushing made them cyanotic. 

“Yeah, no harm,” Liam agreed with a shaky laugh. “More surprising, than anything. Hurt myself more on the floor!” 

“I’ve ruined the show.” 

“We’ll run it back.” 

Ryder turned toward the alien. “Wait a second, Liam. I want to figure this out. Jaal, again. Lighter this time, if you can manage.” 

“I don’t…” Plaintive eyes searched her face. Such interesting eyes, entirely blue with no whites or distinctive iris, like her own eyes. Surprisingly pretty, or so she thought. 

She pressed her lips in a hard line and reigned her thoughts back in. “Jaal, if you’re going to be throwing out the occasional bioelectric giggle, figure out how to do it right.” 

“I can keep it under control,” he promised.

“Or, you can make a new habit.” 

“Yeah, I’m with Ryder on this one,” Liam nodded. “Figure it out. We’re supposed to be opening up more lines of communication, not closing them off. Obviously we can’t reciprocate, but you might as well learn how to do it right in case you ever need to give it a proper go.” 

“You can do it, can’t you? Decrease the jolt?” 

He nodded. 

“So let’s go.” 

Sighing, he moved one of his hands slightly, as if the bioelectricity required kinetic energy to get going. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for anything to happen. 

“Too light?” he guessed. 

“Try again.” 

Another small gesture, this time, followed by a very faint tingle that raised the hairs on the backs of her arms. 

“Better, but not something I would notice if I wasn’t looking for it.” 

Grimacing slightly, he applied another little jolt. This one tickled some, but it got her attention. She wondered if her curls had blown up to epic proportions from the residual static and patted them down just to be sure. 

“I think that's the one,” she confirmed. “I'd check your zaps on the rest of the crew. Clearly, you need to work on asari so Peebee doesn't cream herself in polite company again, but it sounds like turians can take an angaran dose. Who knows about Kallo?”

“How often do angara use their bioelectricity mid-conversation, anyway?” Liam asked. 

“It depends. Sometimes to punctuate a statement, or show affection, or demonstrate anger. There are a lot of social constructs around it,” he admitted sheepishly. 

“You don't need to hold back. Of we're learning your language, we might as well learn all of it.” She gestured to the vid screen. “But later. The musical episode is coming up.” 

Ryder didn't make it to the musical episode before she began nodding off. The nap seemed more important. She tucked her feet under her and slumped against Liam's shoulder to prop her. She didn't figure he would mind. Not that she respected personal boundaries much anyway. 

_ “Ryder.” _

“No. Sleeping. Go away,” she muttered as SAM’s voice pinged from her omnitool.  

_ “Apologies, Ryder. The Tempest has picked up a distress signal. You're requested on the bridge for review.” _

“Distress from who?” 

_ “It appears to be coming from an Outcast vessel.”  _

“Trap?”

_ “It would appear not. Scans of the vessel shows life support dropping to critical levels. Voice analysis of the plea for assistance indicates highly elevated stress patterns.” _

She unfolded herself from the couch with difficulty, rubbing her aching shoulders and wincing as she struggled to her feet. Her body was in no hurry to forget she had recently blown up. Vile curses dropped from her lips as every hurt flared up. 

“It's Outcast. We could just ignore it,” Liam began hesitantly. 

“The fuck we will. Vetra, you're on deck. And Jaal. About time you got your feet wet. Be ready to go if we have to get boots on deck.” 

Twisting more kinks out of her back, she took a few crotchety, hobbling steps. 

“You sure you're up for this, Pathfinder?” Liam called worriedly. 

“Blow me, Liam. I'm fine.” 

At least, she had better be. Outcast lives were still lives. Her bruises could wait.  


End file.
